A Note from Your Fearless Leaders

Hello Costa Rica Ecology Folks!

We're looking forward to our course. As part of our course expectations,
each student will present a twenty minute talk on a tropical ecosystem
topic of your choice during the course. These presentations will be
at lunch time or in the evenings. You may have as little as one day's
notice!

To do a good job in your 15-20 minute presentation, you will need
to hit the library and WWW well ahead of time. We will use the World
Wide Web as our Discussion Feedback Central. You can see what other
students are talking about and I would expect that you would submit
suggestions on other peoples topics as well! In the selection of a
topic, besides submitting a title, include a synopsis of your discussion
topic. What do you plan on teaching the class? Why do you feel your
topic is important? Include an outline of your talk and at least 5
references! I will provide feedback(everyone is welcome to contribute
suggestions) via the web.

Topics can include, but are not restricted to, anything related
to tropical ecology. Some topic ideas include land use, agriculture,
climate change, climate in the tropics, conservation, plants (epiphytes,
emergent trees, palms, understory plants); processes (predation in
tropical rain forests, competition, nutrient cycling, mutualism),
hydroelectric power, conservation, plate tectonics and volcanism in
the Neotropics, indigenous peoples, coral reefs in Costa Rica, mangrove
ecosystems, deforestation, species loss, or specfic species or family
studies on reptiles, amphibians, birds, or other specific organisms
(e.g., monkeys, bats, sloths, lizards, parrots, fresh water fish,
mollusks, butterflies and moths) or other topics addressing biodiversity
and sustainability (the national park system, economy and sustainability
in Costa Rica, soil types, cattle ranching, the timber industry, environmentalism,
medicinal plants). Let your interests lead the way. Do not be constrained
by these suggestions! Look at what other students have talked
about in previous years.To "prime" your discussion,
you may wish to provide readings in advance to the class.

IMPORTANT: If this page seems to be missing recently added documents, click
the "Reload Page" button on your Web Browser to update the menu.

Some Help in Your Research Efforts

Here are links to a large database, the Library of Congress, the
Miami library, and WWW search engines.

The Try it, You'll Like It Web Database--Ecology, Global Change and Much More

There are two main sources of research information on this website: (1) The first is a password protected science article database while (2) the second is a non-password protected Within-Site Search of all of the web pages on this site.

Search the PDF Science Article Database--Password Protected

The science article library contains thousands of PDF articles. It is an amazing resource. The database is password protected.

There are over 13,000 web pages on my website! There are so many pages that it can be difficult to even know what is here. Many of these web pages are student research articles, complete with literature sources. Use the Within-Site Search Engine to look for past student research work that may aid you in your research! It is not password protected.